Here we discuss sex and politics, loudly, no apologies hence "screeds" and "attitude."

4/28/2016

casey champagne needs to be arrested

'the new york post' has an article about hillary clinton supporters taking down bernie sanders' pages online by posting kiddie porn on them. 'bros4hillary' issued a statement insisting it was done by 'former member by the name of casey champagne.'

okay.

arrest him.

for taking down bernie's page?

no, for posting kiddie porn.

possession of which is a crime.

he clearly had possession and he needs to be arrested and convicted for it.

am i surprised that a hillary clinton supporter would have kiddie porn?

Wednesday, April 27, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, AL JAZEERA is
shut down in Iraq, the Defense Dept -- wanting more money -- cites
'progress' in Iraq, the US State Dept suddenly loves protests, and much
more.

In 'free' Iraq, where the US-installed Haider al-Abadi still rules as prime minister (for now), AL JAZEERA has been shut down. The network explains:

The Iraqi Communications and Media Commission has shut down the
Baghdad bureau of Al Jazeera Media Network and banned its journalists
from reporting in the country.In a letter to Al Jazeera on Wednesday, the CMC said it was
withdrawing the license that allowed Al Jazeera to operate in Iraq due
to "violations of the official codes of conduct and broadcasting rules
and regulations."

DW notes: "We remain committed to broadcasting news on Iraq to Iraqi people, our
viewers in the Arab world and across the world," the broadcaster said.
The controversial news network has been banned in Iraq for the third
time now. The last time was in 2013, when it reported on a violent
military crackdown on Sunni Muslim protestors.

This is 'free' Iraq.

Where thug Haider rules.

Where the US government props up thug Haider and pretends he's not another Nouri al-Maliki.

Despite the fact that he encouraged threats against journalist Ned
Parker and that when the REUTERS correspondent had to leave Iraq for the
safety of his team and himself, Haider dared to turn it into a joke
while visiting the United States.

Haider's a hateful man with a cruel streak even bigger than his rotund belly.

He's hateful and he's not to be trusted.

But so many whores in the press pretend like he's done something or is somehow not Nouri -- as if that's enough?

Pol Pot wasn't Hitler.

But as the people of Cambodia can attest, that didn't mean Pol Pot was Ghandi.

Haider's a thug and a threat.

And the US government has disgraced itself even further in its desperate attempts to prop Haider up.

Why is the US still in Iraq?.

Matt Purple (NATIONAL INTEREST) observes:The United States is back in Iraq. Actually, it never really left.President Obama supposedly withdrew all American forces in 2011,
except for a few hundred Marines, defense contractors, and military
advisors. But it wasn’t long before he began ramping up our presence
again, through temporary deployments
and other means. This only accelerated after the Islamic State’s blitz
through Iraq in 2014. Today, the government has blown through even its
self-imposed cap of 3,870 troops,
with an acknowledged five thousandAmerican military personnel now on
the ground in Iraq. It’s another lazy half-measure—like the disjointed
attempt to combat the Taliban—from a president who’s never once laid out
a coherent strategy for fighting terrorism.

Why is it still in Iraq?

To 'combat' the Islamic State?

Doesn't seem like it.

Seems like the military still remains in Iraq to prop up puppet government which still does not represent the Iraqi people.

Maybe when Iraqi politicians are forced to represent the Iraqi people, they'll stop stealing from Iraq?

Maybe when you're puppets installed by a foreign government, you don't
give a second though to fleecing the people you supposedly represent?

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter appeared before the US Senate Appropriations Committee today.

Why?

To plead for money, of course.

To also insist that talk in the House of insisting the next US presidnet
make a request in the spring of 2017 for what is needed.

The Defense Dept -- and the current White House and president -- want a
blank check and want it written now so that they can cash it whenever
they choose to.

They don't want oversight.

They don't want to be responsive to the people's representatives.

That is the Congress.

And they're given control of the purse -- of spending -- for a reason.

A blank check would defeat that control.

Secretary Ash Carter: There with our support Iraqi security forces
retook Ramadi, have been reclaiming further ground in Anbar Province,
most recently the city of Hit and along with Iraqi Kurdish forces have
begun operations to capture and isolate Mosul with the intent of
collapsing ISIL's control over that city.

We keep hearing all of these claims.

Most of which can't be verified.

Like Brett McGurk's endless pimping of the claim that foreign fighters going into Iraq are decreasing.

It's a nice claim but is it really verifiable?

No.

Like so much this White House has offered on Iraq, it's not verifiable.

The situation in Anbar has grown increasingly muddled as the Obama administration has stepped up its military support to Iraq, announcing
that it will deploy Apache helicopters and position more troops closer
to the front lines. It has touted victories in Anbar as an important
step toward liberating the country from the Islamic State, also known as
ISIS or ISIL, and as a prelude to a campaign, possibly this year, to
retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

But
Iran’s proxies are undercutting efforts to unite the civilian
population, a necessity if Iraq is to eventually extinguish extremism.
In the siege of Falluja, a Sunni city, the Shiite militias have
prevented civilians from leaving Islamic State territory while resisting
calls to allow humanitarian aid to reach the city. Sunni Arab civilians
in the province are increasingly reporting kidnappings and murders by
the militias, accounts that American and Iraqi officials say are
credible.

In
some cases, after civilians have disappeared, their families have
received ransom demands. Abu Abdulrahman, a resident of Amiriyat
al-Falluja, a city in Anbar under the control of the government, said
three of his cousins vanished last year after being stopped at a militia
checkpoint.

“We
haven’t heard anything about them since then,” he said, although a man
approached the family and demanded a ransom of $8,000, which was paid.
“He disappeared with the money,” he said.

Conditions
are so dire in Falluja for the tens of thousands of civilians trapped
there that dozens of people have starved to death, civilians and
activists say. Food prices have skyrocketed, with a bag of flour that would cost $15 in Baghdad going for $750, Human Rights Watch has reported.

Back to the hearing for a moment.

Secretary Ash Carter: As we've made this progress with momentum in
this campaign clearly on our side, last week in Baghdad, I announced a
number of key actions we're taking to continue accelerating our campaign
against ISIL. We'll be placing advisors with the ISF, that is the
Iraqi Security Forces, down to the brigade and battalion level to help
enhance decision making and responsiveness. We'll be leveraging Apache
attach helicopters to support the ISF's ongoing efforts to envelop and
retake Mosul [. . .]

Mosul was seized in June of 2014.

How much longer is it going to be before the city is 'retaken'?

US President Barack Obama's plan or 'plan' has been enacted since August of 2014.

Mosul's still not liberated.

Today, the US Defense Dept announced/claimed:

Strikes in IraqBomber, fighter, ground attack and remotely piloted aircraft
conducted 23 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s
government:-- Near Baghdadi, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and
destroyed two ISIL tunnel systems, an ISIL tunnel entrance, an ISIL
heavy machine gun, an ISIL recoilless rifle and an ISIL fighting
position.-- Near Beiji, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed three ISIL fighting positions.--- Near Fallujah, three strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit,
destroyed two ISIL mortar systems and suppressed an ISIL tactical unit.-- Near Hit, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL machine gun and an ISIL anti-air artillery piece.-- Near Kirkuk, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL assembly area.-- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL mortar system.-- Near Mosul, five strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical
units and destroyed two ISIL rocket rails, an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL
fighting position and suppressed an ISIL heavy machine gun.-- Near Qayyarah, four strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL mortar system.-- Near Sinjar, a strike suppressed an ISIL mortar position.-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL assembly area and an ISIL supply cache.-- Near Tal Afar, three strikes destroyed two ISIL tunnel
systems and an ISIL front-end loader and denied ISIL access to terrain.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic
events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a
single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a
single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle
is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons
against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for
example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or
impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not
report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number
of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual
munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in
counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a
strike.

QUESTION: On Iraq?MR TONER: Yeah. Sure, Michel. Iraq it is.QUESTION: Do you have any (inaudible) the partial cabinet
reshuffle today and the demonstrations by the followers of Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr?MR TONER: Well, I’ll start with the protests. And we obviously
– we support the Iraqi people’s freedom of expression and assembly,
just so long as these are peaceful protests. Peaceful protests are an
integral part of a functioning democracy, and it is our understanding
that, up till now, these protests have been, in fact, peaceful. Moving
forward, the security for the international zone is the Government’s of
Iraq’s responsibility, so they can probably answer best any further
questions about security around these protests. But we obviously support
the Iraqi people’s right to express themselves nonviolently.In terms of the cabinet reshuffle, I’d obviously refer you to the
Government of Iraq to comment on the specifics. But Secretary Kerry said
when he was in Baghdad just a few weeks ago that it’s important to have
political stability, to have a unified and functioning government as
rapidly as possible, in order to move forward so that Iraq’s efforts to
combat and defeat ISIL are not affected and not interrupted. So we urge
all parties to work in tandem and work together to move the political
process forward in ways that advance the interests and the aspirations
of the Iraqi people and in accordance with the Iraqi constitution.

Oh, goody, political stability.

That's the argument that let Nouri al-Maliki get a second term (the
Iraqi people did not elect him) and that let him stay on throughout his
second term.

Even though he was overseeing the beating and raping of Iraqi girls and
women in jails and prisons -- often illegally imprisoned.

Even though he targeted Iraq's LGBT community, unleashed the Shi'ite
militias on them, sent his Interior Ministry into the schools to
demonize them and call for their deaths, etc.

Even though he used both terms to actively encourage the persecution of
Iraqi Christians to the point that his two terms saw a great reshuffling
of Iraqi Christians from Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq to the Kurdish
north instead -- because the Kurds could and would do what Nouri
wouldn't: try to protect Iraqi Christians.

Even though he terrorized and killed civilians for the 'crime' of protesting.

Even though he had reporters kidnapped and tortured for the 'crime' of reporting on the protests.

Nouri al-Maliki's rap sheet is never ending.

But he was kept in place for 'political stability.'

He provided no stability to Iraq.

But the US government felt he was 'their man' and that if they propped
him up long enough, at some point he was going to get that hydrocarbons
law passed.

It's still not passed.

So today finds Barack and company putting their faith in Haider.

By the way, it's cute that the State Dept can now support protests.

During the year-plus of non-stop protests, the State Dept could never find a way to defend the protesters.

Not even following the Hawija massacre.

But today, they're all on board with protests.

Because they aren't protests.

They're support rallies for Haider.

Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr has released his
zombies on the streets of Baghdad to rally for Haider and create the
appearance of support.

Back to the State Dept's struggle with truth on Tuesday.

QUESTION: About – thanks, Mark. Regarding Muqtada al-Sadr --MR TONER: Yeah.QUESTION: -- is there any concern at this point in this
building about his influence in Iraq? On multiple occasions in the last
three months, he’s been able to swiftly get well over 100,000 people
into the streets of Baghdad. He’s also overseeing one of the more
influential and successful Shia militias in the country in the fight
against the Islamic State. He seems to have reemerged as a major player
there. I wonder if you can comment on that and whether that’s a good
thing or are there concerns here.MR TONER: Well, I think, just answering your last question
first, I mean, it’s a perfectly fine thing, as long as he wants to be a
part of the political process and not work against it. I would just –
you’re certainly right that he is able to still wield tremendous
influence within Iraq. That’s clear by these current protests. And
again, as we often say about these kinds of environments is that, if
you’re willing to quote/unquote “play by the rules” and be a voice for
positive change within a society, then that is part of the democratic
process and we support that. So certainly we, again, recognize his
influence. We recognize that he’s still an influential figure in Iraq,
but we just encourage that his influence remain, as I said, positive and
peaceful.QUESTION: Is there some indication that it’s not at this point?MR TONER: No, I just – I mean, look – I mean, just in the past we’ve had concerns. And going forward --QUESTION: We actually had a target on his head for a few years.MR TONER: Well --QUESTION: And he was – I don't know if he was ever indicted --MR TONER: I’m not sure about that either. But all I’m saying is --QUESTION: But his forces at one time were at war with U.S. forces occupying Iraq.MR TONER: That’s correct.QUESTION: I know that was a long time ago.MR TONER: No, I understand that. That’s why – and partly –
that’s part of my caveat. I mean, that’s why I say what I say, is that I
think as Iraq evolves politically there is, in many countries that are
evolving politically, an opportunity for some of these individuals to
transition, if you will. But we view always this transition with
caution.
His caveat?

That's cute.

"Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr."

The US government came up with that billing for Moqtada.

And they didn't mean it as a compliment.

But these days, Moqtada dances for Haider so the US is all prepared to stick dollars in Moqtada's g-string as well.

There is no coherent policy for Iraq because there's no concern for Iraq or the Iraqi people.